IVHEADING SOUTH
WHEN the period of instruction was completed I flew the old Jenny up to my student’s home in Iowa and, after watching him make a few solo flights from his home field, I left on a train for Lincoln. My last sight of the old Jenny was as it passed two hundred feet over the station near the center of town—and my parting instruction had been to keep a safe gliding angle when over the city and under no circumstances to come below fifteen hundred feet.
I went to Lincoln to get an S.V.A., which is a two-place Italian pursuit plane, and fly it back to St. Louis. But on arriving I learned that it was in the old Pulitzer Field near Omaha andin questionable condition. It was reported that some cows had eaten all the fabric off the rudder. Cows and mules are fond of the fabric covering, and it is not uncommon to hear of a plane being completely stripped by these animals in a few minutes. On the other hand, I have left a machine unguarded in the same pasture with cattle for days without having them touch it. And during the two weeks I spent at Maben, Mississippi, there had been a number of mules in the same pasture with my ship yet they apparently never came near it.
We filled the back of a touring car with a new rudder and other spare parts, and drove to Omaha the next morning.
The S.V.A. was in even worse condition than had been represented. In addition to needing a new rudder, part of the lock-stitching had broken in the wings and as a result, the fabric was very loose. The radiator had developed a number of leaks which someone had attempted to stop by dumping in a pailful of bran. And whenwe eventually did get it started the engine skipped badly and would not “rev†up over 1100 R.P.M.
At last we decided to attempt to fly the ship to Lincoln where it would be much more convenient to work on it, and I took off with a sputtering motor and with the centigrade five degrees below boiling. At the end of five minutes the needle was crowding the peg at 115°, and in fifteen minutes the water expansion tank exploded. I landed in a stubble field and hired the farmer to hitch his team to the ship and haul it to a fence corner next to his house, where I left it to be taken apart and hauled to Lincoln by truck.
I passed the month of December barnstorming in Illinois, and in January went to Chanute Field to take the entrance examinations for a Flying Cadet.
On one occasion while at Lambert Field I had made a short flight into the Ozark foothills with Leon Klink, an automobile dealer who hadbought a Canuck that fall and was just learning to fly it. After I returned from Chanute Field and was waiting for the results of my examinations, we decided to make a pleasure flight through the south, barnstorming only enough to make current expenses, if possible. Klink wanted to learn to fly, and at the same time take a vacation, while my only objective was to keep flying and at the same time be ready to enter the next class at Brooks Field which commenced in March, providing my examinations had been passed satisfactorily.
Accordingly on the twenty-third of January we took off from Lambert Field in five below zero weather and headed for the Sunny South.
Our first stop was at Perryville, Missouri, where we visited with some of Klink’s friends for several days, and carried nineteen passengers. After leaving Perryville we flew to Hickman, Kentucky, and landed in a soft field east of town. We had passed out of the extremely cold weather and the wheels of ourplane sank several inches into the southern mud. When we had refueled and attempted to take-off, it was impossible to get enough speed to lift the tires out of the mud. So Klink got out and I tried to take-off alone. On the third attempt the ship gained enough speed for the wings to begin to carry a portion of the load and keep the wheels from sinking so deeply; then it was only a matter of a few more feet before I was off.
I picked out a hayfield a little further from town, which appeared to be a little more solid than the first, and landed. By that time it was too late to make another hop before dusk, and as even the new field was too soft to make it advisable to carry any passengers, we left the Canuck tied to a fence and went into Hickman for the night.
The first effort to take-off the following morning was unsuccessful, also the second. We could not gain a speed of over five miles an hour over the soft ground. Finally, with the assistance of several men pushing on each wing, we got theship to the top of a gentle rise which gave us enough of a start to take-off without serious difficulty. We stopped once in Tennessee for fuel; then at Friar Point, Mississippi, where we landed in an old cotton field and tied down for the night.
The Canuck had only one fuel tank with a capacity of twenty-three gallons or enough to last for two and a half hours. By leaving half an hour for locating a landing field, which was quite difficult at times, we had enough gasoline remaining for about one hundred and twenty-five miles in still air. If we were bucking a head wind it would be just that much less.
We spent the night with one of the plantation hands near the field and the next day in seeing the country and carrying a handful of passengers. In the evening we visited a “hanted†house with a party of the younger residents but were unable to find any “hants.â€
Our next stop was at Hollandale, then Vicksburg, where we landed in a little field six milesnorth of town by slipping in down the side of a small mountain and ground-looping before striking a stump. After a day seeing Vicksburg we flew to Clinton where the passenger trade was quite lively and another day passed making sightseeing flights.
We refueled at Hattiesburg and Mobile, then landed at the Naval Air Station near Pensacola, Florida, where the Commanding Officer showed us every courtesy during our visit.
At last I received notice from the War Department to the effect that my examination had been satisfactorily passed, along with an order to appear at Brooks Field, San Antonio, Texas, in time to enter the March fifteenth class of Flying Cadets.
Klink and I decided to cut short our stay at Pensacola and to work our way as far west as time would allow before it was necessary for me to leave for Brooks Field.
We had promised to take one of the ladies of the post for a short hop before leaving, and on themorning of our departure I took off for a test flight before taking the lady over Pensacola. Just after the ship had left the field and was about two hundred feet high over the bay, the motor “reved†down to about five hundred. I banked around in an attempt to get back to the field but lacked by about fifteen feet enough altitude to reach it, and was forced to land in the sand hills less than a hundred feet from the edge of the flying field. The first hill wiped off my landing gear and one wheel went up through the front spar on the lower left wing, breaking it off about two feet from the fuselage.
A quick survey of the plane showed that we would require a new landing gear and propeller in addition to the material required to splice the spar.
The Navy hauled the plane into one of its large dirigible hangars and allowed us to make use of its equipment in repairing the damage. We purchased a spare landing gear and a propeller, then built a box frame around thebroken spar and after gluing all the joints, screwed it in position and wound the splice with strong cord, which was then shrunk tight by several coats of dope. In this way the splice was made stronger than the original spar had ever been.
When we were not working on the ship we made several trips to the old Spanish forts which protected the city during the days when Florida still belonged to Spain. These are in an excellent state of preservation and contain a number of passageways, one of which is supposed to lead underground between the two fortifications, but although we searched carefully for the opening to this tunnel we never found it.
In all we spent about a week repairing the plane and when it was ready to fly once more I tested it with an Irving parachute borrowed from one of the officers of the station. That was the first service type of chute I had ever worn and I experienced the unique feeling of not caring particularly whether the ship held together duringthe tests or not. I put that Canuck through maneuvers which I would never have dreamed of doing with it before, yet with the confidence of absolute safety.
The advent of the service parachute was a tremendous step forward in the advance of aviation. It gave the test pilot a safe means of escape in most cases when all else had failed. It permitted formations to fly closer in comparative safety and in short allowed flyers to learn more about their planes than ever before. All this contributed to the ever-increasing knowledge of practical flying which makes possible the safety of present air commerce.
The airplane parachute has developed with the rapidity of the planes themselves. For years descents with chutes were made from balloons, but the first jump from a plane was by Capt. Berry at St. Louis, Missouri, in 1912. His parachute was a comparatively crude affair and of no use in an emergency. Ten years later, service type parachutes had been perfected which werestrong enough to stand any strain the weight of a man’s body falling through the air could place on them, no matter how many thousand feet he fell before releasing the parachute from its pack; and today, fifteen years after Capt. Berry made the first jump from an airplane, every army and air mail pilot is required to wear a parachute.
The test flight over, we lashed a five gallon can of gasoline on each wing and followed along the Gulf of Mexico to Pascagoula, Mississippi. There was a small crack half-way down the back of the Canuck’s gasoline tank and when the gas no longer oozed out through the crack we knew that the tank was half empty. By carrying the two gas cans we obtained an extra hour’s cruising range, and when the main tank became low I would pour their contents into it through a short length of steam hose. In this way we expected to make longer flights between landing fields and partially make up for the time lost at Pensacola.
From Pascagoula we went to New Orleans, landing in the race track north of the city. Thento Lake Charles and from there to Rice Field at Houston, Texas. At Rice Field we installed three fuel tanks under the top wing and center section, which gave us twenty-seven gallons extra capacity, or, in addition to the five gallon cans lashed on the wings, a cruising range of about four hundred miles.
The field was covered with water and as our next stop was to be Brooks Field, which is just a few miles south of San Antonio, we only filled the wing and main tanks, leaving the five gallon cans empty.
At Brooks I obtained definite instructions to report not later than March fifteenth.
It was then the end of February but we decided to push on as far west as the intervening time would allow. Then I would return by rail and Klink would continue alone.
We filled all of our tanks and after running along the ground for half a mile, stalled into the air; but after three circles of Brooks Field were completed and the plane was less than fifty feethigh we landed and left one of the cans. Klink held the other in his lap in the rear cockpit.
We had no more trouble in attaining several hundred feet of altitude with the lessened load and greatly lessened resistance, which counted for much more than the weight of the gasoline, but an hour later, when the elevation of the ground below us increased as the mountains were approached, we were again just skimming the mesquite and cactus. At last it was necessary for Klink to heave his gas can over the side and for me to turn the ship down a ravine to keep from striking the ground. It was disappointing enough to leave the first can at Brooks Field but I do not believe Klink will ever forget the sight of the second as it burst on the ground below us.
Sometime later we came to the West Nueces River and, mistaking it for the Rio Grande, turned north. We had been cutting across country but had hardly flown long enough to have reached the Rio Grande. The Rio Grande was the only river, according to my map, with a railroadrunning along the northeast bank. We followed the West Nueces to Camp Wood where the rails ended. By that time I knew that the map was in error and we were on the wrong course, but as there was insufficient fuel remaining to warrant our cutting across the mountains to the west, we landed in a small sheep pasture near Barksdale. This pasture was not large enough for us both to take-off together so I flew the ship over to Camp Wood alone and landed in the town square. With the wind blowing from the right direction, and by taking off under two telephone lines and over one road, the square afforded a long enough runway, provided the wind was blowing from the proper direction.
The next day conditions were ideal but Klink wanted to go to a dance that evening, and the day after, the wind was blowing from the opposite direction. Our remaining time was passing rapidly and we were both anxious to get to California before my return to Brooks Field. If wecould get the plane to a larger field six miles south of Camp Wood we would have room to take-off with a full load of gasoline.
One of the town streets was wide enough to take-off from, provided I could get a forty-four foot wing between two telephone poles forty-six feet apart and brush through a few branches on each side of the road later on. We pushed the ship over to the middle of the street and I attempted to take-off. The poles were about fifty feet ahead and just before passing between them there was a rough spot in the street. One of the wheels got in a rut and I missed by three inches of the right wing tip. The pole swung the plane around and the nose crashed through the wall of a hardware store, knocking pots, pans and pitch-forks all over the interior.
The merchant and his son thought that an earthquake was in progress and came running out into the street. He was highly pleased to find an airplane half-way into his place of business and not only refused to accept anything for damages, but would not even allow us to have the wall repaired. He said the advertising value was much more than the destruction.
POLICE GUARDING “THE SPIRIT OF ST. LOUISâ€Â©Wide World PhotosCURTISS FIELD, L. I.—POLICE GUARDING “THE SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS†ON ITS WAY TO THE RUNWAY FOR THE TAKE-OFF
©Wide World PhotosCURTISS FIELD, L. I.—POLICE GUARDING “THE SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS†ON ITS WAY TO THE RUNWAY FOR THE TAKE-OFF
©Wide World Photos
CURTISS FIELD, L. I.—POLICE GUARDING “THE SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS†ON ITS WAY TO THE RUNWAY FOR THE TAKE-OFF
CAPTAIN RENÉ FONCK WISHES ME THE BEST OF LUCK©Wide World PhotosCURTISS FIELD, L. I.—CAPTAIN RENÉ FONCK WISHES ME THE BEST OF LUCK
©Wide World PhotosCURTISS FIELD, L. I.—CAPTAIN RENÉ FONCK WISHES ME THE BEST OF LUCK
©Wide World Photos
CURTISS FIELD, L. I.—CAPTAIN RENÉ FONCK WISHES ME THE BEST OF LUCK
The greatest damage to the plane was a broken propeller, although from that time on it always carried left rudder. We wired for a new propeller and a can of dope from Houston and in a few days were hedgehopping the mountain tops in true Canuck fashion on our way west.
A Canuck, or J.N.4C is nothing more or less than a Canadian Jenny and while it is lighter and performs a little better than a Jenny, it is subject to the same characteristic of being able to just miss most everything it passes over.
We passed over the Rio Grande and cut through a corner of Mexico, then landed on one of the Army emergency fields at Pumpville and induced the section boss to sell us enough gasoline to continue our flight.
Dusk overtook us near Maxon, Texas, and we landed between the cactus and Spanish daggerwest of the town, which consisted of a section house and three old box cars of the type used throughout the Southwest for housing the Mexican section hands.
The section boss was living alone. He was soon to be relieved and stationed in some more populated locality. We spent the night with him and in the morning cleared a runway for the ship. Maxon was quite a distance above sea level and as the air was less dense, an airplane required a longer distance to take-off in. There was a small mountain on the east end of the field and the land sloped upwards toward the west. We worked until midday cutting sagebrush and cactus. There was a light breeze from the west and the air was hot and rough. After using three-quarters of the runway the Canuck rose about four feet above the ground but stopped there, and when the end of the runway was passed the wings and landing gear scraped along on the sagebrush. As soon as we picked up a little extra flying speed, another clump of sagebrushwould slow the ship down again until, after we had gone about two hundred yards, a large Spanish dagger plant passed through the front spar of the lower left wing. After being cut off by the internal brace wires, it remained firmly planted in the center of the outer bay. We landed immediately and found the plane to be undamaged except for a fourteen inch gap in the spar and a number of rips in the wing fabric.
The engineer on a passing freight train had seen us go down and stopped long enough for Klink to climb on board. It was agreed that Klink would go to the nearest place where he could get the material to make repairs, while I remained with the plane. We were thirty-two miles from the nearest store and as the section boss was leaving that day for his new location, I walked a mile and a half to a ranch house, where I arranged for accommodations until we were ready to fly again.
Klink went all the way to El Paso before he could get any dope and wing fabric. MeanwhileI spent the day with the plane, and a large part of the night following the ranchers’ hounds in their search for wildcats and panthers. They had treed a large cat the night before while we were staying in the section house, but were unable to duplicate their performance for my benefit. About all I succeeded in accomplishing after following them for hours, was to pull one dog out of a wire fence which had caught his foot as he jumped over.
Klink returned with a can of pigmented dope, two lengths of crating board, some nails and screws, a can of glue, several balls of chalkline, and enough fabric to replace the torn wing covering. We borrowed a butcher knife, a needle and thread, and an axe from the rancher, and set in to make the Canuck airworthy once more. We hued the crating down roughly to size, cut it into proper lengths with an old hacksaw blade from our toolkit, and finished it off with the butcher knife. In a short time we had constructed a second box splice similar to the one atPensacola, but a few feet farther out on the spar.
We had just enough dope to cover the splice, so the fabric in the outer bay was left undoped; and after we had sewed up the longer rents caused by the sagebrush, we were once more ready to take the air.
It was too near the fifteenth of March to continue west, so we decided to take the Canuck back to San Antonio where we would finish off the repairs and Klink would continue on to California alone.